Jeff was an hourly worker at a large paper mill and helped implement Behavioral Based Safety (BBS) at his plant back in the mid-nineties. He had pulled back from his role in safety when his and his family's lives were changed forever with the phone call that his son Brian, a college student with less than a week left on his junior-senior summer job had been killed in a workplace accident. Because of Brian's death Jeff rededicated himself to working in safety and became the facilitator of his plant's BBS process. Jeff says "I will do anything to keep another family from receiving the call that our family received on the day that Brian died." Jeff has thirteen years of practical experience in BBS including being an observer, a steering team member, and facilitator.
The inspiration for his presentation "Brian's Story" came one day while he was sitting in an audience at a major safety conference. A CEO of a Fortune 500 company was making the keynote speech and commented "The toughest thing you can ever do is to pick up the phone and call someone and tell them that their loved one is not coming home." Jeff thought to himself, "There is one thing tougher than that, being on the receiving end of that phone call." Because of that statement Jeff developed "Brian's Story" with the goal of sharing his presentation to as many people as possible to inspire them to get involved in a safety culture that works to prevent such tragedies.
Jeff currently works for a major paper company as a safety specialist and draws on his 30+ years of experience in the paper industry when delivering his powerful and moving presentations. He has spoken to rave reviews at the BST Users Conference, Region IV VPPPA Conference, ConocoPhillips, Equistar, Eastman Chemicals, Kroger, Bowater Abitibi, Smurfit Stone, Shell, and Temple Inland among others.
